Oannes

James Wynn · 20 Mar 2012, 22:16 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:16:25 -0500
Subject: (urth) Oannes
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W65DE9AF8FE573096EF9A03CF430 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W65DE9AF8FE573096EF9A03CF430 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4F6901B9.3070806 at gmail.com>

On 3/20/2012 4:04 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
> My point about Christianity remains implicit in your answer (and Gerry's). We
> don't question the surgical removal of legs because of an implicit assumption
> that the upper body is more important than the lower; that life is more valuable
> than death. Such things seem so obvious as to be above discussion perhaps. But
> your answer suggests that the superiority of Hiero life to human life is equivalent
> to the superiority of head and heart over legs.

Well, to the Heirogrammates, the existence of the Heiros (not any 
specific Heiros so far as we know) are more important than the continued 
lives of the specific Urthlings at the time of deluge and of the 
existence their descendents. Remember that from the perspective of the 
Heirogrammates, anything they do or do not do makes them culpable for 
lives destroyed. They KNOW what might have been.

There is a mostly unstated axiom of Judeo-Christianity that is shared 
and explicitly stated in Stoicism: "The world as it is, the the best of 
all possible worlds." Right now you are perhaps suffering. In 1944, 
injustice was law in Germany. God is omnipotent and could have acted to 
stop it, just as he stopped the Assyrians from destroying Jerusalem and 
(by implication) stopped the Persian emperor from wiping out the Jews in 
the book of Esther. But God is benevolent and sees the whole picture and 
has chosen the way things are. He doesn't justify himself to humanity. 
That's the moral of God's speech to Job: "You want an explanation for 
why, you, an objectively super-moral man, is has been tormented? When 
you've seen what I've seen, come back and I'll explain my decisions."

> Likewise, the way and the truth of
> Christianity is implicitly favored over other religions without the need for
> justification.

That's right.

Act 17:29-30  Being God's offspring, then, we shouldn't think that the 
divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by 
human art and imagination. Having overlooked this behavior during the 
Times of Ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent. ~ 
Paul preaching in Athens

> As Gerry says, Christians
> feel they are superior because they know the truth.

Christians view the gospel message as the only suitable one because they 
believe Jesus Christ is God's personal revelation. I can't think of a 
doctrine of any sect that teaches this makes Christians themselves 
superior (although Christians have many times acted as though it does). 
I think it is in Ephesians that Paul says even the will to repent and 
believe the gospel is a divine act of God.

> I'm just saying I think it is important to openly acknowledge the Christian belief
> in One Truth Only, for a full understanding of Wolfe's work, especially if he is
> considered to be a Christian writer.

Definitely.

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